The band underwent various lineup changes before settling with the six current members. It was shortly after this time that DragonForce played at Ozzfest. The band began touring for their third album Inhuman Rampage shortly after the Sonic Firestorm tour and several months before Inhuman Rampage was even released. The band toured with many well-known metal bands such as W.A.S.P and Iron Maiden. The tour was much longer than the band's recent tour for "Valley of the Damned" and featured many more headline shows than the previous. It was around this time that the band began becoming popular internationally and adopted nicknames such as "Bon Jovi on speed" and "Journey meets Slayer." When Mackintosh entered the band in 2004, they began referring to their style of music as "extreme power metal" due to his fast blastbeats and double bass rhythms. Sonic Firestorm was the first DragonForce album featuring Adrian Lambert on bass and Dave Mackintosh on drums. The band's follow-up album, Sonic Firestorm, proved to be even more successful with the lead single "Fury of the Storm".
Since this concert, the band has returned to the same venue every tour. The entire show was pro-shot to be released on a DVD, however it has not yet been released. The Japan performance was the largest amount of people that the band had played for yet. The band's tour for Valley of the Damned lasted until 2004, with a performance in Japan. The title track, re-released in promotion of the album, it is one of the most known DragonForce songs to date and is a staple of their live performance to this day. In 2003, the band signed to Noise Records and began recording their debut full-length album, Valley of the Damned.
Steve Williams later went on to form power metal band Power Quest. Shortly after the demo was released keyboardist Steve Williams and bassist Steve Scott both left the band and were replaced with Ukrainian born Vadim Pruzhanov on keyboard and British born Diccon Harper on bass. The song was also a huge success on MP3.com where it charted at #1 for 2 weeks as the most downloaded song. A promotional video featuring live footage from their tour around Europe was released along with the song. Their song "Valley of the Damned" was released as their first single shortly after they changed their name permanently to DragonForce. It was an independent release, however it was enough to make them one of the most popular independent power metal bands in the UK at that time. Initially the band intended to call themselves "DragonHeart", but found that another power metal band with this same name already existed.ĭragonHeart recorded their first demo in 2000. Sam Totman and Herman Li had former experience in the band, Demoniac. Lost Souls in Endless Time (06:22) *Bonus*ĭragonForce was formed in 1999 by singer ZP Theart, bassist Steve Scott, guitarists Sam Totman and Herman Li, drummer Didier Almouzni, and keyboardist Steve Williams. Invocation of the Apocalyptic Evil 00:13ĩ. DragonForce - Valley of the Damned (2003)ġ.